


you are my clarity

by griffenly



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-03-31 23:31:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3997312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/griffenly/pseuds/griffenly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke leaves, and everything goes to shit. Or, well, Bellamy does. (prompt from kyngbellamy on tumblr!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	you are my clarity

Octavia let it go on for three months before she decided enough is enough.

She had tried to coax Bellamy out of his stupor after the first week, when the ghosts that were in his eyes came into sharper clarity and his skin turned a frightful pallor and his cheekbones became more pronounced than before. Then had come the bruised smudges beneath his eyes from lack of sleep, and twice Miller had to drag an unconscious Bellamy into the med bay because he had passed out while they worked on reinforcing the wall.

And now, here he was, his chest just barely moving up and down, as though his body was rejecting this life without Clarke, as though a world without her in it was quite literally impossible for him to survive in.

She wondered what it was about that girl with hair like sunshine and scars marring her fragile heart, with the blood of thousands caked beneath her nails and eyes that were equally haunted.

(Octavia knew, of course, but she fucking hated it.) 

And so after three months, with her brother laying on a cot in the med bay almost permanently, she threw Clarke’s wishes to the dirt and took off to go find her. She may hate her, but she loved her brother more, and if that girl is the only way to make him stay (stay here, in this life, with her) - then so be it.

Raven managed to sneak her a few additional weapons, and Lincoln gave her a hard kiss to her lips and a softer one to her temple, murmuring, “Be careful.”

And she set out. 

Octavia had underestimated Clarke, it seemed, because while she assumed she would find her just a handful of miles outside of Camp Jaha, perhaps in one of Lincoln’s caves, and that it would take very little to make her come back (she had told Lincoln she would be gone for two to three weeks, tops, and she had rolled her eyes at his unconvinced expression, but now she understood). 

(She worried she would be too late. She worried that she would drag the fucking princess back to the camp, and he would be gone, a withered bag of bones, and the princess would have another name on her ledger.) 

(She hated her.) 

It took her a month, and even then, it had been an accident. Octavia was fucking starving, and she was running scarily low on the rations she had brought with her, and the game hadn’t been particularly strong so hunting had been out of the question. She entered a small village, a group of Grounders she had never come into contact with before. 

She saw a flash of golden hair. 

“Clarke,” Octavia practically whispered, and the girl turned, her braided hair whirling around her head as her hardened blue eyes come into contact with Octavia’s own, and fucking hell this is not happening. 

“Clarke,” she said again, firmer, with more purpose, and she takes a few steps towards the older girl. (She noticed that Clarke’s jaw was set, firm and unmoving, and she had her arms crossed over her chest, head held high, and dammit if she didn’t look like royalty.) 

“Octavia,” the blonde replied, her voice cold and unfeeling, and - and this wasn’t Clarke. Clarke was kind to a fault, and warm, and no matter how much Octavia fucked up (she thought of the words she had spat like poison, in the caves of Mount Weather, and she thought of the hundreds of people, scorched to the bone at TonDC), Clarke was always ready to forgive. 

But this girl… this girl was built of iron and steel. Her eyes were no longer the soft blue of the river, but the color of ice. 

“What… what are you…” Octavia tried, but she was having trouble forming coherent thoughts, because although the ghosts had evacuated her eyes, it was as though her soul had, too. Salvation had come at a price, and although Clarke had saved her people, she had lost herself. 

Octavia wondered if it would be possible to bring that girl back. The one who lit up at the sight of colored pencils, the one who made her brother smile like a kid again, the one who Bellamy looked at like she was the fucking sun and stars and moon, all encapsulated into one singular being. 

“I’m a healer, here,” Clarke answered stoically. “I’ve been here for about two months, now.” 

Octavia nodded dumbly, and then cleared her throat. “I… I need you to come back with me,” she said, trying to make her voice firm, trying to locate that warrior that was rooted deep inside of her. 

Clarke lifted one eyebrow. “Why?” 

Octavia felt the fire in her gut, again, and this time when she spoke, there was no restraint. Just flames and bitterness and burning, burning anger. “Because,” she spat, “my brother is fucking dying, and that’s on you, princess.” 

(She thought she saw Clarke’s eyes flash with something close to fear, but it was gone just as soon as it had appeared.)

“Why can’t my mother help you?” she asked, but Octavia could detect the hint of concession in her words. She wondered if maybe Bellamy’s pining wasn’t quite as unrequited as he perceived it to be. 

“Because he doesn’t want anyone’s help. He doesn’t need it.” Octavia stood up straighter, mimicking Clarke’s position, so the two women were staring each other down, warrior to warrior. “He needs you.” 

There was a softness overtaking Clarke’s expression, then, and a wistfulness, as though she were reliving a memory from long ago. But then she cleared her throat, nodding twice, as though to herself, and said, “Fine. I’ll go.” 

Octavia nodded as well. “We’re leaving now,” she told Clarke firmly, and although the older girl looked as though she wanted to protest, she swallowed it down and nodded. 

“Fine. I need to tell the other healer first.” 

And then they were off, again, and it was strange, having this Clarke with her. She remembered the Clarke of just a few months ago, the one whose back was crooked under the weight of the world she was trying to hold between her thin shoulders, the one who could barely keep herself together as she screamed I’m doing the best I can. The one who had barely left Bellamy’s side on the long trek back, their arms brushing every so often, as though each was reminding the other that they were there, they were alive, together.

But then she’d left, and she’d become this: this hollowed out, fractured version of herself. Her aching heart had become too much of a burden to bear, so she had ripped it from her throbbing chest, tossed it behind her without a second glance. 

(Octavia thought of Bellamy. She hoped she wasn’t too late.) 

It took them a much shorter amount of time to reach Camp Jaha than it had taken Octavia to locate Clarke. Clarke was well-versed in the woods by now, knew of all the shortcuts, knew the best places to rest. They were at the cusp of the forest in only two weeks, and Octavia could visibly see Clarke steeling herself even further as they neared the camp. Her eyes were glazed, her back was ramrod straight. (She wondered if it had been hard, peeling the continents from her back, if Atlas had cried when he let the world crumble into dust as he collapsed to his knees.) 

They arrived in the dead of night, conveniently, so Miller was the only delinquent they see, and only because he is on guard shift that night. He was taken aback at the sight of her, but he hid it deftly, merely nodding once and then letting them pass through. Octavia led Clarke directly to Bellamy’s cabin (it - along with a new, free-standing med bay - had been the only project he was able to demand be started before he collapsed into his vegetative state), shouldering the door open quietly. 

There was a candle lit on the nightstand, likely courtesy of Raven, and the golden hue silhouetted Bellamy’s body in a glow that made him appear practically dead. His skin was nearly translucent, his bones stark and visible, and a sheen of sweet glimmered on his forehead. 

There was a sob. 

Octavia turned her head, and she watched the mask of armor break apart into a million little pieces, cracking slowly, and then all at once - she saw the horror and then the fear and then the unmistakable love, the devastation, all crawl onto Clarke’s face. She saw the glassy film slip from her eyes as tears pooled in them. Clarke brought a shaky fist to her mouth to stop the broken noises from escaping, but they were there, nevertheless: the physical manifestation of her discarded pride. 

Clarke was back, and Octavia had never been more fucking relieved to see someone cry. 

Wiping hastily at her eyes, the older girl moved forward quickly, settling herself by Bellamy’s body, her fingers ghosting across his pale flesh. “Fuck, Bellamy,” she muttered, and Octavia couldn’t agree more. “Such an idiot.”

“Now, princess, that’s not very nice,” he managed, and even though his words were slurred, they were there - more so than they had been in the months Clarke was gone. (Octavia hadn’t been able to get him to talk for weeks. She tried not to be jealous, that Clarke could save her brother when she couldn’t.)

(She failed.)

Another sob wrenched itself from Clarke’s mouth, and she grabbed his face gently between her palms, leaning her forehead against his. “When you get better, I am going to kill you.” 

Bellamy twitched his lips, and Octavia thought she might cry. 

She also felt like an intruder, and so she left them alone, slipping out the door and into the blackness, only letting the sobs leave her body once she was a safe distance away from the cabin. 

It happened slowly. 

Bellamy still didn’t leave his cabin for a few days, and no one saw Clarke, really, either; she spent all of her time nursing him back to health, chastising him relentlessly for being so fucking stupid, and Octavia wanted to, as well, but he had this ridiculously dopey smile on his face whenever he looked at Clarke, like he was in awe of her, like he wasn’t sure she was real or here or his, and it made all of her protests die in her throat. 

She wondered if this is what she would have become, if Lincoln hadn’t made it out of the Mountain. 

She pushed the thoughts away immediately.

But then days turned to weeks, and Bellamy became a fixture in the camp again. Clarke was permanently by his side, and whenever she wandered a bit too far, his fingers always sought her skin - sometimes just a brush against her arm, or against the skin at her waist; sometimes draping his entire arm over her shoulder - as though reminding himself she hadn’t left again. 

And when weeks became months, and Bellamy was able to be out on his own (although his eyes always sought her out, his body only relaxing once he was certain she was still okay), Octavia finally confronted Clarke, arms crossed over her chest and one eyebrow defiantly lifted. “You can’t leave again,” she told the older girl firmly. 

Clarke nodded. “I know,” she said calmly. “I don’t plan to.” There was a ghost of a smile hovering at the corner of her mouth, and her eyes were the warm blue of the butterflies Octavia had chased once upon a time, not the steely color of ice. She was fucking glowing, too, all golden hair and pale skin, and Octavia could see why her brother thought she was the sun. 

Octavia nodded once, and she watched Clarke make her way over to Bellamy, her arm sliding across his back as hers naturally fell across her shoulders, not even breaking conversation with Miller, and Clarke was staring at Bellamy with such adoration in her eyes that it made Octavia a little uncomfortable. 

(Maybe they were both the sun, she reasoned. Clarke brought light into the dark caverns of Bellamy’s tortured existence, and Bellamy… Bellamy burned away the vestiges of Clarke’s anger and guilt and self-hardened exterior.) 

(Maybe they were both the sun.)


End file.
